
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, April 10, 1990                   TAG: 9004100195
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ELIZABETH, N.J.                                LENGTH: Short

DOCTOR TESTIFIES LIST WATCHED EROTIC FILMS TO HELP MARRIAGE

John E. List watched erotic films to improve his sexual relationship with his wife, a psychiatrist testified Monday in the former accountant's trial for the slayings of his family.

More details about List's background emerged during cross-examination of Dr. Sheldon I. Miller by the prosecutor, who was seeking to undermine testimony about List's mental condition and religious devotion.

Miller had testified last week that one of the many pressures that caused the strictly raised Lutheran to snap was the shameful knowledge that Helen List suffered from terminal syphilis.

Helen List caught the disease in 1943 from her first husband, according to testimony.

When asked by Union County Assistant Prosecutor Eleanor Clark whether watching erotic movies was inconsistent with shame over a sexually transmitted disease, Miller said, "Not necessarily."

On later questioning by defense attorney Elijah L. Miller Jr., the psychiatrist said using pornography was Helen List's idea.

List contends that because of his mental state at the time he is innocent of murdering Helen List, 45; his mother Alma, 84; and his children Patricia, 16, John, 15, and Frederick, 13, at their 18-room Westfield mansion Nov. 9, 1971.

In a legal development Monday, List lost a chance for the jury to consider a manslaughter charge. He is charged with five counts of first-degree murder, and Miller was hoping to convince the jurors that, because of List's mental condition at the time, they should convict him of a lesser charge.

by CNB